Blood and Crystal
by Sundance Coyote
Summary: Sequel to "Bella and the Beast." AU. Bellamort. Bellatrix should be happy to finally be with Voldemort and even having his child, right? Unfortunately, a new prophecy threatens to tear apart their new normal. And what happens when the witch burnings and disappearances begin? Do the Blacks fight for what they know or join with the Order against a new enemy? On hiatus.
1. Chapter 1: The Prologue

**Sequel to "Bella and the Beast" (aka Love that Binds)**

 **Chapter 1: Prologue: I See Fire**

 **(Bellatrix)**

"Narcissa, I can't do this."

"Do what?"

"This. The wedding. I can't."

Bellatrix stared down at her dress, feeling extremely out of place in it even though she thought the style suited her well. The top of the dress was a deep-plunging sweetheart cut made of blood-colored silk and covered at the waist with an exposed black leather corset. The skirt of the dress was longer than Bellatrix would have liked, but made of layers of red tulle that glistened with a faint sprinkling of iridescent and black glitter.

"I look like a princess," she murmured faintly. The dress was fluffed out like a cupcake past her waist rather than form-fitting as she might have opted for had Narcissa not objected during the fitting. It made Bellatrix think of children's stories about heroes and knights and battles where the light side always had to win. At least it was better than the white and pink monstrosity she'd been forced into when she married Rodolphus. But then again she hadn't put much input into any of the decisions for that marriage simply because she didn't care. This was different.

"Bellatrix, please. I'm not as good a Legilimens as you but even I can tell that you're making comparisons to your first wedding. Stop. This is different and you know it." Narcissa leaned over Bellatrix, softening her curls into delicate ringlets with the tip of her wand.

"You know you don't mean that. You loved Roddy," said Bellatrix bitterly.

"Yes, but you didn't. This is different," Narcissa said again. "You love the Dark Lord." Was it so different? Or was it merely the same situation in the reverse? In the first marriage, Rodolphus had loved Bellatrix, but she didn't love him back. Now, she was finally marrying someone who felt right, but wasn't so sure he returned her feelings. Of course, she and Narcissa had already been through that conversation about a dozen times, so Bella didn't feel she stood to gain anything but a lecture by bringing it up again. Besides, Narcissa would only say the same thing she always said: "Why would he bother marrying you if he didn't love you?"

Unfortunately, Narcissa didn't know that Voldemort stood to gain quite a lot from marrying Bellatrix even if he didn't love her. More than that, he had only just begun to recognize his emotions less than a month before...perhaps he was confusing the feeling of love with the feeling of sense of obligation. After she'd fulfilled the prophecy and took a killing curse for Voldemort, she'd fallen into the strangest sort of dream state...she still didn't know if it was real but she saw...things. Things she hadn't dared to confide in anyone. Not Narcissa. Certainly not Voldemort...but she often wondered, with Voldemort being the great Legilimens that he was, if he knew she saw something pertaining to him and thus decided to marry her so he could have some sort of insurance on the information she possessed...but it was all a bit absurd, really. In the dream (because that was all it could be) Albus Dumbledore came to her through a thick fog to show her the birth of Voldemort and his supposed twin brother.

It wasn't even possible...

Except she knew it was.

"Sweetie, he brought you back from the dead," Narcissa added cheerfully as if guessing her sister's thoughts. Oh yeah. That.

"Cissy, why the hell would I want to marry someone I owe my life to?"

"Because he owes you his life, too."

"Maybe that's why he feels obligated to marry me," Bellatrix growled, slouching back against her chair.

"Come on, Bella...not this again. And sit up straighter, please...otherwise your hair is going to be all messed up."

If only not to disappoint Narcissa, Bellatrix straightened even though she knew her sister was about to be a lot more disappointed when Voldemort got cold feet and decided not to get married after all...or decided he'd rather marry someone else.

For awhile, the only sound in the room was the slow hiss of Bellatrix's hair singeing as Narcissa's wand molded it into place.

"Are you sure you want to wear it down? No up-do?" Cissy prompted brightly.

"No."

Narcissa sighed. "Please...with the moping. One would think you were headed off to a funeral," she said, echoing her sentiments from when she prepared Bellatrix for her first trip down the aisle.. "Love has caused you so much pain. Both of you," she continued. "You need this. And so does he. Besides that, you're the brightest witch of your age and he's the brightest wizard of his age and you two couldn't be happy with anyone but each other."

Bellatrix said nothing. It all happened so fast. For thirty years, Voldemort had barely acknowledged Bellatrix's existence and then all of a sudden, he was talking to her about some prophecy and telling her how much he appreciated her...but still, none of that hinted at love. Friendship, arguably, but not romance. And then just over a month ago, she woke up in a strange place to Voldemort leaning over her and telling her that now they both knew what it was like to come back from the dead, they should be married and that was that. It was quite logical not to trust it, she thought.

"What do you think of your hair?" Narcissa held up a small silver hand mirror so that Bellatrix could examine her reflection. She had to concede that her younger sister had done a very nice job, even if she thought it was all going to be wasted when Voldemort backed out. Maybe it was all a joke. Maybe he blamed her somehow for the Elder Wand's failure to kill Harry Potter. Maybe he thought making a fool out of her like this was an innovative way to punish her.

"Bella, honestly…cheer up. We've got a Dark Lady to coronate." She saw Narcissa's smile reflected at her through the mirror and she resented it.

"I can't do this. I won't do this."

"You've wanted this your whole life and now you're saying you don't want it anymore?"

"No. Cissy...I do want it. And now I might actually have it. And that's why I'm bloody fucking terrified

 _~I'm weak in the knees for you,_

 _but I'll stand if you want me to~_


	2. Chapter 2: The Wedding

**Chapter 2: The Wedding**

 _June 1998_

 _Malfoy Manor_

(Bellatrix)

The grounds outside of Malfoy Manor gleamed unrecognizable in the glow of afternoon sun fading slowly into twilight. Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy had put up a small white gazebo in the center of their back fountain garden and strung it on all sides with red and black roses. The fountains on either side of the gazebo were bewitched to spurt scarlet water and a sea of chairs stretched out before this elegant scene, all of them black and backed in red silk intertwined with more roses. Suspended in the air, about ten feet above each seat, were smoky jars each containing a live fairy that would glow when the sky got dark enough. Even the Malfoys' trio of rare white peacocks sported streaks of red and black feathers for the occasion, the coronation of the Dark Lady. But when Bellatrix emerged out the veranda door to walk down the aisle, the decorations were the last thing she noticed. In fact, she could hardly see anything due to her attempt to take in everything all at once.

She first felt everyone's eyes on her at the same time as every guest shifted in his or her seat to look at her. She tried to smile, tried to make a mental note of every Death Eater in attendance, but couldn't because at that precise moment, she felt the round crown of red roses perched atop her head lurch horribly forward. Narcissa, of course, had wanted to be traditional and put Bellatrix in a veil, but eventually decided against it as she thought that either black or red would look either "too funeral" or too "hag in a balaclava" respectively. It was Bellatrix who picked out the red rose crown. She tilted her head ever so slightly to one side under the guise of smiling at Travers and Sedona, successfully managing to resecure her crown, but it was too late for her heart, which was already pounding to raise a whole army of Inferi. She forced herself to look at the ground in front of her, a red-carpeted path lined with still more black roses, so that she wouldn't trip and she clutched her bouquet tightly so that she'd have something to do with her hands. The band played a delicate Celtic ballad called Earth, Wind and Sky that seemed to quicken as she approached the gazebo with some trepidation, as if it was her destiny.

(Voldemort)

Voldemort could not remember any occasion on which Bellatrix had looked so beautiful as she did approaching him down the aisle now. All traces of her having died a month ago seemed to have vanished and were replaced by a renewed vigor. Her cheeks were once again tinged pink and the entirety of her visage seemed to radiate heat, power and wonder.

Meanwhile, Voldemort stood under the gazebo in a black tuxedo beside their Minister of Magic, Pius Thicknesse, who was to officiate the wedding.

Bellatrix tottered a bit in her heels when she stepped up onto the gazebo's raised platform, but Voldemort caught her by the arm with one hand and pulled her up towards him. That feeling of heat flooded him again when he touched her, affirming that it might be true-he might really, actually be in love with her. He still didn't know...and maybe he never would, but that didn't matter. He needed to marry her. If he didn't, they and their cause could both be in unimaginable danger...but he was trying not to dwell on any of that. She'd saved his life. She deserved to at least believe, for now, that he was marrying her for love.

(Bellatrix)

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today on the eve of the Summer Solstice to celebrate the joining of this man and this woman into eternal partnership."

Bellatrix's heart raced. She and Voldemort had made a number of alterations and scratch outs on these "traditional" wedding vows Thicknesse had produced. She didn't want it to be anything like her first wedding and Voldemort, well, he thought he was better than all of that.

"To all their guests, they are happy to share this moment with you. Our ravishing bride, Bellatrix, is pleased to have her sister Narcissa Malfoy beside her as her Maid of Honor...close to her for the ceremony. Bellatrix thanks her sister for growing up by her side, always being there…" Thicknesse trailed on.

Bellatrix grinned and met Narcissa's eye. Thicknesse neglected to mention that if not for Narcissa, Bellatrix wouldn't be standing there looking so ravishing at all. Her sister smiled beneath her demurely straightened blonde hair. She wore a long, fitted gown of an elegant soft gray to complement all of the harsh blacks and reds in the wedding color scheme.

"...And Voldemort, our groom, appreciates all the support his Death Eaters have given him over the years and is grateful that they could be here today." Bellatrix had to suppress a snort and avoid looking at Voldemort...the idea of him being grateful for anything the Death Eaters had done was more unbelievable than the idea of him getting married. Besides, if they hadn't been forced to attend and bribed with free booze, she sincerely doubted many of them would be here.

"...And so it is that Voldemort and Bellatrix present themselves to be married today...surrounded by the people they value the most." Thicknesse continued and Bellatrix struggled to swallow the bile that was slowly rising to her throat. She was amused and excited, sure, but she'd also never felt more nervous in her life. It was starting to set in that all of this...wasn't just another crazy dream she'd wake up from only to be scolded by Narcissa for her wild fantasies. It was real. She was getting married to the man she'd always loved, but who'd also always continued to be too far out of reach. She'd never been so happy, but she was also afraid. Was it a set up? Would he change his mind? Could her heart handle such a horrible, public rejection? The resulting mix of all her emotions, rather than flood her with adrenaline as it maybe should have, left her feeling like she was going to either throw up or cry...and it took all the sanity she had left to try to keep herself together while everyone she knew was watching her as though waiting. Waiting for something to go wrong. Some sort of spectacle. Some validation for wasting their time to be here...and she was determined not to give it to them.

(Voldemort)

"As Voldemort and Bellatrix prepared for the ceremony part of this wedding celebration, they reflected on what it is that they love about each other."

Voldemort suppressed the urge to roll his eyes because they most certainly hadn't done any of that. 'Preparation' for this wedding had mostly included snatching an absurdly hackneyed wedding script out of Thicknesse's hands at the pub one night and scratching out half of it. And he was starting to wish they'd taken out more.

"The reading Bellatrix and Voldemort selected for their wedding ceremony is an excerpt from a piece titled "Red as Blood," by Tanith Lee. The words talk about the intense reawakening a person experiences entering this kind of partnership...it is a coming together and a pulling apart, a compromise, a rebirth, a presentation of one's best self. The reader is Draco Malfoy, Bellatrix's nephew and the Best Man today.

Voldemort watched Draco rise from his seat in the front row and climb the gazebo steps to stand on his other side. He pulled from his breast pocket a folded piece of parchment and from it, he began to read:

" _Into a thousand shards the coffin shattered, and Bianca sat up. She stared at the Prince, and she smiled._

 _"Welcome, beloved," said Bianca._

 _She got to her feet, and shook out her hair, and began to walk toward the Prince on the pale horse._

 _But she seemed to walk into a shadow, into a purple room, then into a crimson room whose emanations lanced her like knives._

 _Next she walked into a yellow room where she heard the sound of crying, which tore her ears. All her body seemed stripped away; she was a beating heart. The beats of her heart became two wings. She flew. She was a raven, then an owl. She flew into a sparkling pane. It scorched her white. Snow white. She was a dove._

 _She settled on the shoulder of the Prince and hid her head under her wing. She had no longer anything black about her, and nothing red._

 _"Begin again now, Bianca," said the Prince._

(Bellatrix)

Bellatrix was now trying consciously to keep the tears at the corners of her eyes from leaking out. How that excerpt from her favorite fairy tale had only a week ago seemed fitting...but now it only scared her more. She didn't want to lose the black about her or the red. She didn't want any light, but instead to be loved for her darkness.

"We come now to the words Bellatrix and Voldemort want to hear the most today...the words that take them across the threshold from being engaged to being married.

A marriage, as most of us understand it, is a voluntary and full commitment. It is made in the deepest sense to the exclusion of all others, and it is entered into with the desire and hope that it will last for and in their case, beyond, the boundaries of life…"

It was strange to her to hear Pius Thicknesse talk about she and Voldemort as if they were getting married at the end of a long engagement just because it might have been more proper if they'd gone about it that way...but it just hadn't been like that. There wasn't exactly an engagement at all...or a proposal for that matter...more like they realized getting married was the thing to do after both being spared from death at the hands of each other. And everything else, much due to Narcissa and Lucius's well-meaning meddling, had fallen into place after that.

"Before you declare your vows to one another, I want to hear you confirm that it is indeed your intention to be married today...Bellatrix Black, do you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to Voldemort in marriage? If so, answer "I do."

She finally risked a glance away from her bouquet and up at Voldemort. Her heart might as well have been on fire for all that was going on within it. She wanted to be closer to him-closer than they'd ever been. Skin against skin. Fucking like dragons. But she also wanted to take off running into the woods and never look back. After today, everything was going to be different forever...but that wasn't so much as a reservation as an inescapable truth.

"I do," said Bellatrix.

"Voldemort, do you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself to Bellatrix Black in marriage? If so, answer "I do."

Bellatrix's mother once said that the greatest honor in her life would be to give herself wholly, fully to a proper man. A former suitor of hers had once said that one day, a lucky man would sweep her off her feet and keep her forever. He meant it to be a compliment...probably. But Bellatrix never wanted to be kept by anyone.

It was easier to exist as smoke...weightless and empty and alone...free to do whatever she wanted...Never to be caught by anyone...except Voldemort. He stood the closest out of anyone. And here was the moment. He could catch her...she promised to let him...or he could lose her indefinitely.

"I do," said Voldemort.

"Bellatrix, please give your bouquet to Narcissa," said Thicknesse, but Bellatrix hardly heard him. Happiness and fear once again buoyed up inside her and threatened to make itself known very very visibly. Man you love says he'll marry you...Bellatrix reaction: vomit. Because logic. Maybe it was because her heart had never pounded inside of her with such ferocity. Yes heart, I know. I have a heart. She happened a glance at Voldemort again to see if anything in his expression had changed since he said "I do," but he looked as frustratingly stoic as ever.

"Voldemort and Bellatrix, having heard that it is your intention to be married to each other, I now ask you to declare your marriage vows. Bellatrix, perhaps you'd like to go first," offered Thicknesse and Bellatrix finally grinned. This was the part she was actually most looking forward to. What could be easier (and more fun) than finally getting to tell everyone why and for how long she'd loved Voldemort? She took a deep breath to squelch the potential vomit situation and took the piece of parchment Narcissa held out to her, on which Bellatrix had composed her wedding vows.

"It was once said that until we have seen someone's darkness, we don't really know who they are. Until we have embraced someone's darkness, we don't really know what love is," she read, but then without really thinking, she tossed the script to the ground."Okay, I've got to be straight about it...I feel really fucking messed up right now," she said and judging by the gasps and amused chortles of laughter from the audience, her f-bomb drop had woken about half of them up. "I can't just stand up here and read anything off a piece of paper about being happy to be marrying Voldemort, because those few words, those...vague exclamations of emotion...could never begin to cover all of what I actually feel." She could feel everyone's eyes on her again and was starting to wish she could get away with picking up the script again and just reading it off like she'd originally planned, but she knew she couldn't and at the same time retain any semblance of her dignity.

"I can't tell you how long I've loved V..Voldemort...because the truth is that I don't know," she continued aware that she was struggling to keep her breathing steady and her pitch even. "To you, he is the Dark Lord, but to me he's my past, present and future. Our fates are bound to each other like ribbons entwined to make a bow."

 _~11-year-old Bellatrix sees Tom Riddle for the first time and learns what it feels like to want to think about someone until she falls asleep each night._

 _~ She is only a first year, but she longs to know him, this older boy who has everything. He is beautiful, that much is a given. Professors call him the brightest wizard to come through Hogwarts since Albus Dumbledore's time...and she especially likes his expression when she knows he's thinking deeply. She can scarcely get close to him because he's a seventh year, Head Boy, Quidditch Captain, everyone's favorite, always so surrounded by admirers he doesn't seem to care about but must indulge all the same, though it is in his face that Bellatrix sees the whole world._

 _~Anyone would think she would hate him for having everything she wanted, for always being one step ahead of her in everything...but this is part of why she admires him so very much. She already knows she is talented...doesn't need anyone else to tell her they can see it, too. She wants to be challenged by him...so when she sees his Quidditch Beater's record hanging in the trophy room and complains about it, she's really hoping, deep down, that she never beats it...even if she can. If she reaches the top, what will she have to strive for? Maybe it's the challenge he presents, more than his intelligence, his charisma, his beauty...that arouses her so intensely._

 _~14-year-old Bellatrix finds Tom Riddle working in Knockturn Alley and feels tingly all over. Her skin is hot and her breath feels hotter as she struggles to find something cool and meaningful to say to him that isn't 'I'm old enough to be with you now…' So she tells him she believes in everything he stands for not just because it's the truth, but because she wants him to fall in love with her mind._

 _~Her sisters don't understand...won't understand that she can't just 'get over it' like she has some stupid school girl crush or a bad head cold. Something inside her came alive so profoundly when she met him that any memory from before him existed in her mind as part of a meaningless half life when she was only a girl. She was a woman now. A woman who desired a man she knew would be legend long before anyone else did._

 _~15-year-old Bellatrix learns all sorts of things she'd never have learned in school. Dark magic. Spells to make people hurt that make her wand feel like a dagger in her hands. How to orgasm with her mind and how to use Occlumency to protect these dangerous erotic impulses so he'll never know she uses the mere idea of him to succumb to something so dirty and human._

 _~16-year old Bellatrix mixes Amortentia in Potions class and smells everything she didn't notice seduced her on their own...but all together like that...she doesn't want to be away from it, so she brings her nose to the level of her cauldron, closes her eyes and inhales deeply, trying to discern each individual scent in her mind. There's licorice wands, her favorite candy, mixed in like sweet absinthe. A campfire burning in the woods at the Quidditch World Cup. A drizzle of cinnamon and firewhiskey ready to scorch her throat all sticky and hot...And Voldemort in the midst of it all, like Bianca in the Tanith Lee story. Hair black as ebony. Skin white as snow...and later, in his new body, eyes red as blood._

And now she was here and made of all these other Bellatrixes rising to her surface so powerfully she knew something in her was going to explode...but whether it be her vagina, her tear ducts or her gag reflex, she still wasn't sure.

"You'll spend your whole life hearing people tell you about the need for balance in love, and about how opposites attract and how you can only grow in a relationship if you find someone who is completely different from you...but it was never like that for me," she continued, completely aware that the Death Eaters and even Voldemort were probably going to tease her for this speech and quote it at her for the rest of her life, but in the moment not caring. She had to get this out.

"Call it self-centered, I don't care. I never wanted to be with my opposite...because I don't believe total opposites can exist. Even still, many would consider the Dark Lord and I to be more similar than can ever work in a marriage, but he's everything I've ever wanted. V..Voldemort," she said, turning away from the sniggering Death Eaters and finally facing him, though still unable to look him in the eye. "You have been my mentor, my teacher, my leader, my confidante, my friend, my daydream lover...And I've always stood behind you, but today, I'm here to stand beside you. As equals...And I love that when I'm with you, I don't have to give up my black and my red and pretend to be anything other than the woman I am, because that's the woman you chose to be with...and shit I'm just so fucking lucky…"

"You're crying, Bellatrix," said Voldemort. As if she didn't know. But she couldn't help it anymore. She was marrying Voldemort. Voldemort was going to be with her-to see and touch and stay up late in the night talking about the universe with and invent spells with and lay beside at night...she'd never believed it possible to be so happy you cried until it happened to her.

"Yeah, I am crying because I've never felt so...alive...like this in my life and this is how my body is choosing to react, which is honestly the best we could have hoped for because about ten minutes ago I thought I was going to throw up all over everyone but I'm also scared to lose all of this and never feel alive again and could you please just say your piece before I go on anymore? I'm making a damn fool of myself."

"Oh Bellatrix...dear loyal Bellatrix...how I've always admired that in you...your ability to say what you feel with such earnest and zeal...even when you doubt yourself. You have proven yourself, especially this past year, to be important to me. Just how important, we have eternity to come to understand and it is my wish that we can come to that and other further conclusions together.

It wasn't the sweet declaration of romance that another witch might want...but it was so very simple and truthfully Voldemort that it made her heart swell to fullness. She didn't need him to say anything else.

(Voldemort)

When they were silent and he knew they were finished speaking, Pius Thicknesse stepped forward again to stand between them.

"Your wedding rings are the outward and visible sign of the inward and invisible bond which already unites your two hearts in love," he said. "The ring that Bellatrix will receive today was designed by the Dark Lord himself. As this ring symbolizes her coronation as the Dark Lady that comes with her marriage to Lord Voldemort, may it be a joy for Bellatrix to wear for the rest of her life.I ask our Best Man, Draco Malfoy, to give Bellatrix's ring to Lord Voldemort."

Voldemort watched Draco produce the ring on a red velvet cushion and as he'd expected, Bellatrix's eyes widened and she became speechless at the sight of it. He had quite literally put everything into it in the hope that she would wear it forever-the band was silver and encrusted with tiny emeralds, all from the hilt of a sword that had once been Salazar Slytherin's. The centerpiece, a black diamond containing, he was sure, the last Horcrux he would ever make. It swirled inside now, he could see it spattering the inside of the diamond like ink, a tiny piece of his soul-the last he could possibly splice from himself without incurring significant irreparable damage. It was essential that she never take it off. As essential as it was that they be married, sealing the love magic that hopefully, would protect the both of them when...it came to that. As he knew it would.

"Voldemort, my Lord, now you place the ring on Bellatrix's finger and repeat after me...

'I give you this ring.

Wear it with love and joy. As this ring has no end, My love is also forever.' Draco, now please give Voldemort's ring to Bellatrix."

He plucked the ring off the velvet cushion as tenderly as he could and held it out to Bellatrix's outstretched ring finger.

"It's breathtaking," she whispered not knowing just how much. And when he slid the ring tightly onto her finger, he could feel her trembling. He liked when she did that. Maybe he should have mentioned it in the wedding vows. Then again, after all she'd shared, maybe he shouldn't have.

"Bellatrix, place this ring on Voldemort's finger and repeat after me...

With this ring,

I marry you.

Wear this ring forever As a sign of my love."

His groom's ring was also silver and adorned with more emeralds from the same sword as on Bellatrix's ring and inscribed inside: Exitus Acta Probat. The result validates the deed. The saying from Slytherin's tomb.

"May the wedding rings you exchanged today remind you always that you are surrounded by enduring love...and with that, I now pronounce you: Mr. and Mrs. Black!" Thicknesse exclaimed. They'd chosen to take Bellatrix's maiden surname to honor her sacred 28 family and because they didn't exactly want to be referred to as the "Demorts" forever. Besides that, he'd finally shed his filthy Muggle father's surname and that, he thought, certainly validated everything. So it was with no reservations, that Voldemort Black kissed his bride.

 _~If everything you see is what you're believing_

 _Then she'll be holding your heart_

 _And by the time the sun goes down_

 _You won't know who you are_

 _She likes to do it in the dark~_

 _ **A/N: Hi! I hope you liked reading this chapter as much as I did writing it! I spent a lot of time on the internet looking at non secular wedding ceremonies and combined a few (as well as made up a bunch of my own stuff) to cobble this one together and do these two justice (I hope)**_

 _ **some questions to consider for the coming chapters:**_

 _ **-when will Bellatrix finally tell Voldy all that she saw in her vision the night she died?**_

 _ **-when will Voldy tell Bellatrix her wedding ring is a Horcrux and that there is danger in their future?**_

 _ **-what are Harry Potter and the light side up to and how will they react to Voldemort and Bellatix's wedding (if they find out)?**_

 _ **as always, thanks for reading!**_

 _ **Xoxo**_

 _ **SunDance**_


	3. Chapter 3: Devil in a Dinner Dress

**Chapter 3: Devil in a Dinner Dress**

 _July 1998_

 _Malfoy Manor_

 _1st Floor Dining Room_

( **Bellatrix** )

"I have gathered you all here today, for the first time since the battle in May, to discuss how we shall proceed," Voldemort announced from his position at the head of the long claw-footed table. From her position at his immediate right and wearing a silver and emerald tiara that indicated her rank as Dark Lady, Bellatrix eyed the Death Eaters around the table who looked considerably less enthusiastic than usual.

On her other side, sat Narcissa who looked tired and not as well dressed as was normal for her. And to her right sat Lucius, who looked in contrast, extremely eager for some reason unbeknownst to her.

"As you may have observed, we suffered heavy losses in our last battle at Hogwarts school...significantly, Severus Snape, Vincent Crabbe Jr., Fenrir Greyback and Scabior and countless others who have all been loyal to us, to varying degrees, these past years…" Voldemort announced with an uncharacteristic tenderness. Then his voice suddenly deepened with hostility.

"I hope never to endure such losses again...that is why, your Dark Lady, Bellatrix Black will be holding mandatory Dark arts practice and coaching sessions to get your dueling and defense mechanisms up to par."

A few Death Eaters groaned audibly and Voldemort silenced them at once, as Bellatrix's heart leapt. He'd promised her a more involved role in the Death Eater organization...especially since he agreed she'd more than proven herself, even before they married. But she never thought she'd be in charge of the Death Eaters learning to duel better...which they certainly needed to if they were ever going to stand a chance against the other side.

"...she will be in touch with sign-up sheets for practice slots and practice partner selection. Now, our next order of business: recruiting. As you might've noticed, our numbers are down what with the heavy casualties we have sustained. Bellatrix and I are in the process of devising an extensive recruitment plan…but meanwhile, I'd like us to welcome and acknowledge a few new members we've added to the organization since we last met," Voldemort announced. Bellatrix laughed. In the process of devising an extensive recruitment plan? That was news to her. She never realized before getting so close to Voldemort just how much he made up on the spot during these meetings and had to admire his ability to do so.

What he hadn't acknowledged in response to their decrease in number, she noticed, was how many (lesser ranked, of course) Death Eaters had deserted because they were losing faith in their movement. They hadn't turned to the other side, per se, but had simply lost a reason to fight for.

She watched as Voldemort gave motion for the 'new members' to rise and Bellatrix saw a few people she hadn't paid much mind to before, standing meekly at the very end of the table. One, she recognized as Madam Rosmerta, the landlady of the popular pub in Hogsmeade. She had apparently come with Yaxley and Voldemort commented that she would be very useful in keeping tabs on the goings on at Hogwarts School now the Carrows had been driven out. The next new member, Bellatrix recognized only vaguely as a teenager just past Hogwarts age who'd fought with Slytherin house on their side at the battle (a girl who introduced herself as Pansy Parkinson, a friend of Draco's) and the other two (both rather gruff looking blokes of the typical Death Eater mold) she didn't remember ever seeing before.

Voldemort went on about his plans for recruitment and went over the usual prime targets (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and the Weasley family) with the addition of a new one-Neville Longbottom, the boy who'd killed Nagini. But as the meeting wore on, Bellatrix could tell the Death Eaters weren't into it like they used to be. She made a mental note to address some kind of morale booster with Voldemort later if he didn't get to it first. She knew he still thought something big was coming-something that would give their movement new fire and importance, but might also prove heavy with casualties.

"With Severus gone," Voldemort was saying with the utmost frankness as if he wasn't the one who'd disposed of Snape in the first place (as she knew he had been). "...we will need a new spy for our cause. Someone who can take advantage of the other side's long-held naïveté and pretend to cross over from our side." He paused for effect or perhaps to let the weight of his words sink in, but Bellatrix highly doubted many of the Death Eaters were paying attention, though they made a good show of it.

"I have put much thought into this decision and have decided it would be most convincing if you, Draco and Narcissa, were to do it." Bellatrix could feel her sister's sharp intake of breath aside her while she herself grew furious.

When you mentioned getting a new spy, you never mentioned it would be my sister! She thought bitterly into her husband's mind. Her intrusion was rejected, however, and the thought simply bounced back into Bellatrix's own head.

"...Draco and Narcissa," Voldemort continued, uninterrupted. "...will feign frustration with Lucius Malfoy and myself, and will claim to have converted to the light side, believing a world that idolizes Harry Potter to be a better world indeed." He paused again to let several Death Eaters snigger, before going on. "They will naturally, report to me with regular updates on what the light side is doing, who its supporters are, and any battle plans they may gain word of. Severus's updates, as we all know, proved very useful to us in the past and I have no doubt that Draco and Narcissa's reports will meet with similar good...use."

 **-00000-000000-000000-000000-0000000-000000-000000-**

"My angel, I am scared for you," Bellatrix confessed to her little sister as soon as the meeting let out. Many of the Death Eaters had promptly disapparated, but a few lingered about, heading off into the drawing room for drinks and cigars with Lucius and Voldemort, leaving Narcissa and Bellatrix alone in the dining room.

They cleared the table of food scraps, bits of parchment and other detritus from the meeting with a few flicks of their wands that to Bellatrix's surprise, seemed to leave Narcissa breathless and weak.

"Are you alright, darling? Here, sit down." Bellatrix helped her sister into one of the glossy white chairs and summoned the house elf, Slinky, to fetch Narcissa a hot cup of herbal tea, a task to which the elf happily set to.

Narcissa was looking incredibly pale-even more so than usual and Bellatrix felt fresh worry for her baby sister course through her like fire.

"If you're fearful, you really shouldn't...your heart has never been strong."

"It isn't that, Bella. I haven't been right since that battle. I expect some kind of spell damage from one of the curses I took...not a big deal, I've just been...tired. It will do me good to be able to be of some use to us despite it," said Narcissa whose lips closed to form a thin smile.

"Perhaps we should have you see a Healer," said Bellatrix, settling in the chair beside her sister. Narcissa let out a harsh laugh.

"Oh sure, I bet the Healers at St. Mungos who've all lost family to this war will be glad to treat a Death Eater!"

"Well, perhaps Voldemort should check you over anyway. He's more knowledgeable on these matters than I."

"He's not a Healer, Bella. In fact, he's rather the opposite I'd say."

Bellatrix frowned, but before she could respond, Slinky the house elf returned with the tea.

"Chamomile for Miss Narcissa and Spice for Miss Bellatrix!" The elf exclaimed proudly, her large eyes bright as she handed over the two steaming mugs. Narcissa nodded to it in subtle acknowledgement while Bellatrix stirred sugar and cinnamon into her own absentmindedly, her thoughts trying to wrap around the fact that there was something new to worry about.

( **Voldemort** )

Voldemort clutched his goblet tightly in his fist, trying to conceal his subtly rising frustration from the Death Eaters. A year ago, this room would have been jammed full with his most loyal and able supporters getting drunk and making threats against the other side and occasionally breaking a crystal or two off the Malfoys' expensive chandelier. Now, there was enough room for the few who did stay after the meeting to stretch out amongst the few furniture pieces, sipping their mead in tense silence and the occasional dull murmur of conversation.

Lucius Malfoy stood against the far wall by the piano engaged in a stiff-looking discussion with his son and the two Goyles.

Dispersed amongst the white sofa and lounge chairs sat Travers, Sedona, Yaxley and Rosmerta whispering animatedly about matters of absolutely no importance to him or their movement.

The new recruit, Parkinson, who unfortunately was a teenager of no real use, stood shyly by the fireplace like she knew she was out of place. Rowle was leaning against the fireplace on the other side paying her no mind as he drank himself into a stupor and laughed at a crude joke Macnair had evidently just told.

Bellatrix and Narcissa were nowhere to be seen and everyone else had disapparated after the meeting all too eagerly. And the ones who weren't losing interest in their fight were becoming too comfortable around him-comfortable enough to laugh and joke in his presence about trivial personal matters. They didn't fear him like they used to...yes, he was going to have to do something and quickly.

Voldemort drank down the rest of his mead and strode from the drawing room, meaning to retreat to his upstairs study and plot out how he was going to go about restoring fear in the hearts of his followers, but what he did not anticipate, was finding someone already sitting there waiting for him.

"I didn't think you'd see me alone. I'm used to having men afraid of me, you see."

He heard her voice before he could see her properly. Her silhouette was soft and imposing at the same time as she sat in the moonlight with her feet propped up on his desk. Anyone else, he would have cursed instantaneously, but something about her made him want to hear more from her.

"Well, don't just stand there. I thought you Brits were supposed to have manners," she said in a silky accent that was wonderful to him...and also very familiar. He drew his wand to light the lamps, but she got there before him, bathing the room in fire with only a casual flick of her wrists and he saw her completely.

She was small and thin and blonde-and a witch, obviously. An accomplished one. When he tried to invade her thoughts, she pushed him away with ease like it'd taken Bellatrix years to accomplish.

"My sister told me you would try that," she said in that same noxious voice. Then it struck him why she was so familiar.

"Rhiannon."

"Is my sister. Bit of a tosser though, really. My name is Fiona Goode. And I'm here to help you, Voldemort."

When she said his name without even a hint of fear, he came out of his reverie burning with questions.

"You're wondering how I got in-past your protective enchantments. Well, you should know by now that our magic doesn't work the same way as yours. Maybe even works around it," she said, reading his thoughts with ease. She winked at him and he hurried to raise a shield around his mind as he hadn't needed to do since his youth. He had to remind himself that he was the most powerful wizard of all time...and that no one, not even these showy New Orleans witches, could stand in his way.

"How did you hear of me?" He meant to shout, but his voice came out as almost a whisper when he looked at her. Her features had hints of being aged, yet she looked young all the same. And when he looked directly into her eyes-Amber as an eclipse on a starless night-he had to look away because he felt he would offer her anything otherwise.

"We'll get there in time," she said coolly.

He found it was easier to protect his own thoughts when he looked directly at the wall behind her rather than at her and he wondered briefly if she was part veela, even though veela had never had much of an effect on him before...and nor had the other swamp witches to whom she was supposedly related. He hastened a glance back at her only to find her rummaging in a small black handbag. She pulled out a cigarette, lit it with another flick of her wrists and sat there for a moment, blowing smoke up into his face.

"Killing muggle borns isn't going to matter anymore," she said finally. "I'll tell you more as soon as I know what we're up against...but you should know, I'm pure blood, but I've got a few muggle borns in my associates...and we're all on the same side. It's the people who can't do any magic at all that we've got to watch out for."

"And here I thought you an acquaintance worthy of my respect," Voldemort scoffed. "People who can't do magic aren't worth anything until they try to steal it from us."

"That's the trouble with you!" Fiona shouted suddenly, tossing her cigarette onto the floor and crushing it violently beneath one of her spike heels. "Men are so stupid-and unwilling to see the truth even when it's right in front of your own nose, if you had one that is." She stared directly at him and though he could see her right in front of him, he could also see through her-waterways moving through the swamps outside New Orleans like roadways. A world he hardly knew, a wealth of untapped magical power beneath the thick moss covered banks-and more like her.

"For the time being, you may want to keep our little chat between us...and especially, from your wife...she's a sloppy little witch bitch...but we may find a use for her even still."

"How are you doing this?" asked Voldemort, finally succeeding in pressing her out of his head.

"It's a dance no one ever had to teach me."

 **A/N: Sorry about the late update, but I live in New Orleans and it has been Mardi Gras insanity for the past couple of weeks. In exchange for the wait, I've given you Jessica Lange and another wizarding school-Academy for Exceptional Young Women in NOLA-JKR just hasn't officially recognized it yet. :) And if you haven't seen AHS Coven, Fiona can hypnotize people-and Voldemort is only partially immune. It struck me when I was rewatching the season that Jessica Lange as Fiona Goode might be the only witch who could evenly challenge Voldemort, both with her cunning and her power...so if you're still interested in reading this story, leave me a review for motivation! Thanks always,**

 **~SunDance**


	4. Chapter 4: Things That Scare Me

**Chapter 4: Things That Scare Me**

 _July 1998_

 _Slytherin Manor_

 _Master Bedroom_

( **Bellatrix** )

Voldemort entered her swiftly that night. She felt a familiar warmth in her lower region that spread quickly up through her chest and centered in her cheeks, flushing them deep crimson. Suddenly everything was hot to the touch. She reached up and grabbed onto his chest to pull him down closer to her. She pressed her lips against him, brushing them in all their fullness up to his throat and then the base of his chin and let them rest there momentarily, shrouding his face with steamy breath.

But then Bellatrix felt different. What had been so hot seemed to be freezing over like ice. She stared at the spot in the center of his chest that she'd just kissed and found herself wanting to sink her teeth in to it. Wanting to draw blood. Wanting him to hurt. She shook her head of it as she felt him moving further inside her.

She knew Voldemort liked to read her thoughts while they were intimate, but Bellatrix was scared of what he might find out and felt her own mind battling against his to regain control over itself.

She felt the pressure of his hands against her breasts as she slithered out of her corset like a snake, their bodies feeling cold as icebergs against each other.

~"You've nothing to fear, Bellatrix….if you've nothing to hide."~

Bellatrix struggled to push the voice from her mind and the memory of all it carried with it: a dark place full of secrets, where she is dead and never coming back…

~No! You're alive, idiot! You're alive! You're with him!~ She shouted to herself inside her head.

Bellatrix tried to get as close to Voldemort as she could and every time he touched her made her shiver, like she was being held for the very first time.

He went deeper and she pushed against him, trying to bring the warmth back. Wanting the warmth back so desperately she felt tears in her eyes that he mistook for her own distance from ecstasy.

Voldemort gave a small gasp that she wouldn't have even heard had she not been paying attention. He came inside her and she felt a familiar rush, an explosion of her senses...but all so cold.

And when they collapsed against each other, bodies clinging together with sweat, she wasn't sure if he was giving her life or killing her all over again.

 **-00000-000000-000000-000000-0000000-000000-000000-**

 _Bellatrix is falling._

 _...Where she lands, she lands, but remains suspended in a gray smoky haze, like the kind that rises from a fire except the fire is above her somewhere and she cannot feel it. She remembers hearing once that hot air rises, but cold air sinks and tries to use this simple phrase to rationalize everything even though nothing makes sense._

 _…"You've been keeping secrets, Bellatrix," Dumbledore's voice calls out through the darkness._

 _"Leave me alone," she replies harshly. "I lived. You died. I beat you. There's no reason for you to be in my head anymore...you're ruining everything."_

 _"Am I now?"_

 _Bellatrix wraps her arms around herself, disconcerted because she can't see him._

 _"Yes!" She shouts. "You're messing it all up so I can't be happy with him because I have to worry about what you showed me, what you told me…"_

 _"I don't much know what you're talking about. I merely passed on a message. My power here doesn't extend me the ability to interfere with you and your...life, as you correctly pointed out you got back."_

 _She still didn't believe him. "Then why are you still here bothering me?"_

 _"To bring you to someone else."_

 _Before she can process any of this, she is falling again._

 _She is back in Potions class, only this time when she smells the Amortentia, the scent of blood overpowers her, scorching her senses like hot iron. The other usual things are there, too, buried deeply beneath the blood she craves most of all._

 _She drinks from a goblet full of spiraling liquid that tastes so sweet._

 _"Bellatrix."_

 _She looks up. "Nagini?"_

 _She is looking at the snake's eyes, then she is looking -through-the snake's eyes and she is the snake, slowly being overpowered by the weight of her own coils all around her. But at the same time, she is truly a woman for the first time._

 _She is the snake lying in a place that feels like a bed because it's soft, but firm in the sense that she knows she isn't falling anymore. She cannot see but she hears voices around her._

 _Wait, Misty,"someone says. "If she means so much to you...what are you willing to give up in return, to spare her life?"_

 _Then she hears Voldemort and feels him draw nearer to her even though she is the snake._

 _"Anything? That's what you want me to say, isn't it?"_

 _"I don't want you to say anything...it's what I need to save her."_

 _"What do you need?" Voldemort asks and Bellatrix feels the snake's heart beat faster as it rises into her throat and catches there._

 _"Blood."_

 _"How much?"_

 _"Enough to fill her up and make her whole again."_

 _She can't listen anymore after that-the snake has one thing on her mind and Bellatrix can taste traces of it in her mouth, but she knows it isn't enough._

Bellatrix awoke choking on the bed. She sat up on an angle and coughed profusely into the palm of her hand, trying not to wake Voldemort and panicking all the same.

But as the small jagged object lodged in her throat fell into her hand, she saw that it very clearly was not blood. She'd tried to swallow her own wedding ring.

- **00000-000000-000000-000000-0000000-000000-000000-**

"Narcissa. Open this door. I know you're home." Bellatrix pounded again on the heavy front door of Malfoy Manor until it creaked open and a faint sliver of torchlight cut into the black night air.

"Bellatrix! What's the matter! It's 4 in the morning…"

"I know. But I really need to talk to someone...someone who isn't Voldemort that I can trust...and right now, darling, that someone is you," she explained breathlessly and her sister pulled the door open the rest of the way, beckoning for Bellatrix to come inside.

"To what do I owe this very early pleasure?" She said as she stifled a yawn behind one of her hands. Narcissa's blonde hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she was wearing a long silver sweater over her night dress suggesting that Bellatrix had drawn her little sister from sleep, something she regretted but couldn't help.

"I've been having dreams-crazy dreams. It started the night...the night I died."

Narcissa's smile faltered.

" _Oh._ Well, let's go talk in my parlour . Lucius and Draco are sleeping, but I can get our house elf to bring you something if you'd like."

"Just...just a glass of water, please."

They settled into Narcissa's sitting room, a small space set alongside the kitchen at the back of the Manor and set up like an office, only more comfortable. The room was lined on three sides by windows looking out into the back gardens where Bellatrix and Voldemort were married seemingly a century ago. It was furnished entirely in lavender and silver, one of Narcissa's favorite color-combinations, and adorned with velvet-backed armchairs, floral ottomans and vases of her own home-grown gardenias and purple pansies.

Slinky the house elf brought them drinks-water for Bellatrix and a small tumbler of Chardonnay for Narcissa. And once Narcissa settled herself into one of the velvet-backed armchairs and put her feet comfortably up on the coffee table, she rounded on Bellatrix.

"Alright. So these dreams. Always the same one or different ones?"

"Up until tonight? Always the same one," said Bellatrix honestly. Up until tonight, her dreams had been the same-Dumbledore coming to her through a smoky mist and showing her a scene in front of what was formerly Wool's Orphanage in London, where Voldemort's mother delivered not one baby, but two. Then he brought her to a place she'd never been, where a witch with long blonde hair and a shroud of beads made a prophecy about Voldemort needing to reunite with his brother in order for the war to be won...

~ _Death will be the winner in their war_

 _Nothing noble in dying_

 _Unless brother and brother are to reunite once more_

 _For ideology, for faith_

 _For another war_

 _For who can make beautiful a sad man?~_

...But tonight was different.

"And then?" Narcissa prompted.

"Cissy...I was the snake!"

"Snake? Bellatrix...please calm down and tell me what's going on."

So over the course of the next hour, Bellatrix told her younger sister everything. She didn't realize at first how little Narcissa knew...so she had to go back to the beginning-to Christmas Eve, when Voldemort first told her about the prophecy, his need to feel love and of course, his Horcruxes. It all felt like a huge betrayal of Voldemort's trust at first, but got easier as she went on. Narcissa was her sister, after all. And if they couldn't trust each other, they couldn't trust anyone.

"So by the night of the battle, his Horcruxes had all been destroyed?"

"Yes. Nagini was the last one."

"So that's why you had to-"

"Yes. But I knew it was coming and so did he. After all, the Seer had foreseen it long before."

The two sisters were quiet for a moment after that. Bellatrix knew Narcissa didn't like talking about that night and Bellatrix didn't like talking about it much, herself. Narcissa sipped down the last of her wine and set the tumbler down on the coffee table before wrapping her sweater more tightly around her and meeting Bellatrix's eye.

"So...if you really were dead...then how is it you're here now? How is it you...came back?"

Bellatrix sighed and twisted her empty water glass around in her hands. "I don't know...but the night I died, I had the recurring dream for the first time." She told Narcissa all about Dumbledore coming to her with the vision of Voldemort's birth almost every night for the past two months. Her little sister's eyes widened in surprise with a hint of something Bellatrix recognized as fear.

"What does it all mean?"

"I don't know."

"Have you told him?"

"Obviously not! How could I? Besides...he seems to have enough to be getting on with...at least that's what I thought," said Bellatrix. Narcissa raised an eyebrow.

"Until tonight?"

"Right," said Bellatrix and she told Narcissa all about her latest dream, leaving out the bit about waking up choking on her own wedding ring because it made her uncomfortable.

"Wow," said Narcissa softly when Bellatrix had finally finished her story. The sun was starting to rise now beyond the window panes surrounding them. Other people might have been comforted, but Bellatrix had an ominous sort of feeling.

"I might not have thought it was a big deal...just a weird dream...but it started before I even fell asleep, if that makes sense. Voldemort and I were...together...and I felt like I wanted to hurt him, Cissy. I'd already started being the snake before I was even dreaming," she said slowly. The sound of crickets outside and cicadas whispering in the fountains was slowly overpowered by the chippering of birds and the distant caw of a blackbird.

But Narcissa wasn't saying anything.

"Cissy? Please don't judge me. I'm scared there's something wrong with me...like I'm not the same person anymore...even though I feel like I am...mostly."

"Oh Bella, I couldn't ever judge you. I'm just thinking," she said finally, her smile returning to her face but not quite reaching her eyes, which continued to look distant and sad.

Bellatrix looked out into the back gardens again, which glowed silvery in the early morning light. She watched two bluebirds fighting over the same worm in the dirt by the rose bushes and felt an odd sort of satisfaction when the one she was rooting for ultimately prevailed.

"Bella," said Narcissa.

"Hmm?" Bellatrix answered, but didn't look away from the birds.

"Do you think what you overheard about the blood was all part of the dream or something maybe you're just remembering from that night?"

"Oh, definitely the dream. I mean...taking blood from one wizard or witch and putting it into another...that's some nutter Muggle idea, isn't it? Voldemort would never go for it…" Bellatrix said, even though she was beginning to doubt herself.

"Not even to save you?"

"Especially not to save me," Bellatrix said with the same dishonest conviction. She looked down at her wrists where her veins rested starkly blue against her pale skin. Could it be that the blood that ran there now, was at least in some part, Voldemort's?

"BELLATRIX!" A booming voice cut through their quiet peace. The two birds outside fluttered away, leaving the worm they quarreled for squirming for its life on the dry ground outside.

"BELLATRIX!" She heard Voldemort shout again. He was somewhere in the Manor, presumably using a Sonorus charm to make his voice echo over the entirety of the grounds. Narcissa hurried to her feet and beckoned for Bellatrix to follow her.

"She's here, she's alright," called Narcissa. They found Voldemort in the front foyer wearing a traveling cloak and looking livid.

"You can't go running off like that anymore-it's not safe," he said, his voice returning to its normal volume with a flick of his wand. Bellatrix's face wrinkled in disgust. Was this what all married life was going to perpetually be like? No independence, always having to disclose her whereabouts or be yelled out like a child out after curfew?

"Not safe for us? You've got to be fucking kidding me. Besides, I wanted to see my sister and I didn't want to wake you-what's the harm in that?"

"Maybe you don't understand as well as I thought you did...your childish behavior says as much. It's not safe anymore. Not even for us. This is all so much bigger than I ever imagined."

Bellatrix rolled her eyes. There he was again, going off about his conspiracy theory he wouldn't explain to anyone.

"If you would just tell me-"

"No. That's a conversation for another day. Until then, I need you to trust me."

~ _Fluorescent lights engage_

 _Blackbirds frying on a wire_

 _Same birds that followed me to school When I was young_

 _Were they trying to tell me something_

 _Were they telling me to run~_

 **A/N: no, she's not a vampire...but let's just say Voldemort may have transferred more to her than he intended, and now there are understandable complications**


	5. Chapter 5: Black and Blue

**Chapter 5: Black and Blue**

 _August 1998_

 _Slytherin Manor_

 _Master Bedroom_

( **Voldemort** )

Voldemort awoke early the morning of the eighth of August, a full three weeks after his last Death Eater meeting anticipating the next one, which was to be held that very night.

He had a lot to address-their all-time low numbers, their investment in the cause, the need to gain information on the Light Side (to which end, he planned for Draco and Narcissa to have something to say...lest they suffer his...displeasure). But for now, he watched the chinks of dust catch in the rays of the rising sun beneath the black canopy over his bed and thought about the dream he'd just had.

He couldn't remember much-surprisingly, he'd never been good at remembering his dreams. But he knew Fiona Goode was in it. He hadn't heard from the swamp witch since she'd surprised him at Malfoy Manor three weeks before...but he was frustrated by her silence. What did she know? Was she bluffing? How had she found them? And perhaps more than anything, he needed to know why she made him feel the way he did around her-like his own thoughts weren't his anymore after she invaded them with her frosty ease…

The truth of the matter was that Voldemort had never felt so vulnerable.

Forehead pounding, he tossed off the blankets and got up from bed, careful not to wake Bellatrix, who slept on as usual, blissfully unaware of anything.

He shut the bedroom door quietly behind him and headed down the hallway towards the Armory, where he kept his cauldron and potion ingredients. Bellatrix could never find out, no one could, at least not yet, he thought to himself as he slipped inside. Maybe it was making that fateful eighth Horcrux, maybe it was bringing Bellatrix back...but something changed in him after that.

Alone in the Armory without prying or curious eyes, Voldemort held up the Elder Wand and pointed it in the direction of the lamps lining the stone wall. He willed them to life with a nonverbal spell, but nothing happened.

"Incendio," he muttered and the lamps sprang bright with white fire, bathing the room in haunting silver shadows. He could no longer apparate or use nonverbal spells, but he could still use the Floo network and cast basic verbal charms...

But what about the Unforgivable Curses? Surely he could still cast those...he could even try tonight, but did he want to risk trying and failing in front of all his Death Eaters?

Voldemort leaned against his potion-making table and pressed his fingertips into his temples. He didn't want to admit to anyone, let alone himself, that ever since that fateful night in May, he, Voldemort, the Dark Lord, had been losing his magical power. He was turning into a...a...a Muggle? A Squib? No. It wasn't possible and he'd die a mortal death before he saw that happen.

He'd find an answer, he thought as he opened the violet flagon of unicorn blood he kept hidden in here and let a few drops of the viscous liquid fall down his throat. No one in history had ever split their soul eight ways before. He just needed to get his strength back-and the unicorn blood would ensure that, as long as he didn't caught drinking it.

 **-00000-000000-000000-000000-0000000-000000-000000-**

Feeling as refreshed as he we was going to, Voldemort slipped back into bed with Bellatrix just as the sun began to brighten and the Manor clocks chimed seven.

Suddenly, a low moan to his immediate left shook him from his reverie. He barely had time to get his wife's name out of his mouth before she jumped out of bed and tore off in the direction of the bathroom.

"Bella?" He called out. No answer. Sighing, Voldemort got out of bed again and padded across the carpet to the master bathroom door. "Bella?" He called again.

"Go away!" She shouted back, her voice sounding muffled through the closed door. Then he heard her getting sick.

It was over almost as soon as it began and then she was back in the bedroom, averting his eyes and staring shyly at the ground. The straps of her corseted nightdress were falling past her shoulders and her skin glistened with sweat, but he could tell she was pretending everything was alright.

"Are you ill?" He asked. She shook her head no. "Stressed?"

"Maybe. Or I could've eaten something funny," she said. Voldemort frowned. They'd had the same dinner the night before. He looked up at Bellatrix, still standing by the bathroom door all pale and sweaty. He couldn't have her getting sick, especially not now, when their position and cause were so precarious.

"You should go back to bed and try to get some more rest," he said finally. As he'd anticipated, Bellatrix's lips curved downwards in her familiar pout. "I'm fine, I'm awake, my stomach just had a thing in it that it didn't like!" She protested. But Voldemort remained unconvinced.

"That may be. But we need you healthy-"

"I AM FINE!" She interrupted. "Besides, today was supposed to be the day I signed everyone up for dueling practice before the meeting."

"-as I was saying, we need you healthy for you to best serve our movement. That's why, as your Dark Lord, I'm ordering you to rest."

"What the fuck?! That's-that's-" Suddenly, she was crying. And Voldemort was taken completely aback. He'd now shed tears a total of one time in his life-the night Bellatrix died-and was still trying to wrap his head around the process…could tears be triggered this easily?! And more importantly, how could he make them stop?

 **-00000-000000-000000-000000-0000000-000000-000000-**

( **Bellatrix** )

Everything felt wrong and Bellatrix was terrified, angry, sad and something she couldn't quite place all at the same time. First and foremost though, she didn't feel sick at all and yet Voldemort was forcing her to stay in bed all day and miss the Death Eater meeting. She tried to plead with him and of course would try again, but there was no use. Throughout the house, the clocks struck one in the afternoon and Bellatrix thought if she slept one more minute she'd never be able to sleep again. Because she wasn't sick...at least, not physically anyway. Mentally...she didn't know anymore. She felt like a stranger in her own body, like everything was changing more quickly than she could fathom even though nothing had really changed.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Bellatrix jolted upright and glanced left to right looking for the source of a familiar cool, female voice.

"You always look so surprised. I'm really just trying to keep you company." Oh. Right. The damn mirror. Bellatrix leaned back against her pillows and turned on her side to face the bureau...and the antique mirror above it. It was a beautiful piece, a sheet of blue-tinted sea-glass framed by silver serpents all entwined together. Unfortunately, it was talking to her. Slytherin Manor's resident mirror ghost had the unfortunate habit of cropping up whenever Bellatrix least wanted to deal with her.

"Go away, Elle!" She hissed, pulling the blanket up over her face.

"What? Just because I can see what you can't?"

"And what's that?" Bellatrix growled, her voice sounding muffled beneath the blankets.

"Oh. Now you're curious?"

Bellatrix pulled the blanket down below her nose and thinned her eyes at the mirror.

"You don't know anything about me. You never have."

"I'm not implying I know anything about you...I'm just telling you what I see."

"What you...see?" Bellatrix furrowed her brow, but tossed the blankets aside all the same and sat up on the bed to face the mirror.

"That's better. Now, look at yourself."

Still not understanding but otherwise curious, Bellatrix looked into the pool of sea glass, expecting to see something she didn't expect. But she only saw herself. She cocked her head to one side and really noticed her reflection.

"You think you're beautiful, don't you?" The mirror hissed condescendingly.

"Yes...I do," said Bellatrix. And she wasn't lying. She'd always known she was beautiful...stunning in fact...she'd used it to her advantage since she was a little girl, after all. She loved the shape of her jaw, the way her cheekbones swept up to reach her eyes. The nose she used to think was too long had even grown on her overtime, as she grew into it, physically and figuratively. It ran in her father's family after all, and marked her next in the long line of talented, pure-blooded witches and wizards to bear the noble Black name. And her hair, she thought, as she laughed at the way it fell in a tangled mess over her shoulders and down her back, her hair was her favorite of all.

"You can be as vain as you'd like," said the mirror in her cool voice. "But even you can't deny something's different."

Bellatrix frowned and stretched her arms out in front of her to examine them in the reflection-the scars she'd had since that night glinting in a patch of polluted sunlight along the bend in her wand arm. They intersected eerily at the point where her veins were most purple and contrasted sharply with the crisp black of her Dark Mark below them.

She thought again of her dreams..that night...the blood...the snake...and something warm began rising steadily in her throat.

"You're changing, Bellatrix. Too subtle for you to notice. But I do. And so does he."

"Shut up! I didn't ask you for your assessment," said Bellatrix impatiently. She ran the pad of her index finger along the bridge of the nose she'd grown to love and then used it to follow the lines of blue under her always so heavily lidded eyes. Subtle, yes. But there all the same. She hadn't been sleeping well since the wedding, what with the weird dreams and all.

And being married to Voldemort had been so different than she'd ever imagined, perhaps mostly because she'd never imagined it. Her fantasies always took her as far as a proposal or a wedding ceremony, but no further...maybe because Voldemort had always an unattainable end goal, something to strive for and better herself for, but never something to attain-like he was himself an abstract concept she'd never tried to wrap her head around simply because she never wanted to...and now...well...It couldn't all be anxiety about being married.

Her eyes lingered once more in the marks on her arm and they stood out so harshly just then that she could have sworn they were glowing.

She was trying to process all of this...the marks, the dreams, Narcissa's mysterious weakness, Voldemort's distance...were they all to waste away to nothing? And then she felt sick again.

 **-00000-000000-000000-000000-0000000-000000-000000-**

( **Voldemort** )

 _Malfoy Manor_

 _1st Floor Dining Room_

Voldemort was waiting for his Death Eaters to arrive for the meeting, but he couldn't stop thinking about Bellatrix. When he was with her, he found himself irritated by the smallest things and sometimes even, he couldn't wait to get away...but then as soon as he did, she was there imprinted in his mind the way she'd always been.

Strong, powerful...the kind of woman who could take care of herself. The kind of woman everyone was afraid of...the woman he needed to rule beside him...so different than the woman she became when they were together-weak, dependent, emotional, hardly able to string a coherent sentence together without whining. Yet this was the same person who'd once tortured two renowned and talented Aurors into permanent insanity, survived spending fifteen years in the maximum security ward at Azkaban prison and mastered spells many couldn't even dream of. She was a skilled enough Occlumens to do what had proved to all before her impossible-she could shield her mind from him.

But he'd never even have guessed at any of that if the only Bellatrix Black he knew was the woman he laid beside at night.

It was fucking frustrating as anything, he thought, digging his fingers into the tabletop without really noticing.

The scars from that fateful night caught in the candlelight, looking red and raw as ever against his skin and he quickly pulled down his sleeves to cover them.

"Where's Bella?" asked Narcissa Malfoy, as if reading his thoughts, even though he knew she couldn't. She entered the dining room like a ghost, quiet and graceful and pale in stormy blue robes. She settled herself into her usual seat next to Bellatrix's empty one while her house elf set the table.

"She could not attend the meeting tonight," he replied curtly.

"But she's alright?" Narcissa asked, with a bit too much accusation in her tone. Voldemort's felt his judgment cloud over white-hot.

"That is none of your concern...and yet you question Lord Voldemort?" He kept his tone even, but he'd drawn the Elder Wand on her without even thinking.

Narcissa gasped and drew back so quickly that she almost knocked her chair over. Voldemort looked down at the wand and then back up at Narcissa's white face before stowing it hastily in his robe pocket.

"Please. I've done what you asked," she begged in a voice scarcely above a whisper. Her upper lip began to tremble so subtly he wasn't sure she knew. Voldemort ignored her. He didn't want her thinking he owed her anything because she was Bellatrix's sister. If anything, that only meant she had more to prove.

"They were so naive...I went right to the top, to Minerva McGonagall. She wouldn't tell me where they're hiding Harry Potter or what their plans are, but she was v-v-very sympathetic towards me...I do believe that with a little more time-"

"And you plan to announce this at the meeting?" Voldemort interrupted.

"Y-yes. Yes, of course," said Narcissa, nodding vigorously.

"Good," said Voldemort as the house elf filled his goblet with brandy. The doorbell rang and Narcissa half-rose from her seat to attend to it.

"My Lord?" She asked, her palms still resting on the tabletop. Voldemort again did not answer, but tilted his head to the side to indicate that he was listening.

"You would tell me, wouldn't you? If anything ever happened to her? She is my sister."

Voldemort frowned, but didn't know how to answer. Narcissa lingered for a moment and then hurried out of the room to let the Death Eaters in.

The meeting itself droned by in a blurry haze of more frustration. Narcissa's announcement about getting the Order of the Phoenix to believe her should have been met by cheers, excitement, even raucous ill-humor against the Order. Instead, her words were greeted only by silence. Voldemort had to exert nearly as much self control as he possessed to stop himself from using the Cruciatus Curse on every single one of them to set a precedent...but he was hesitant about revealing the problems with his magic.

He thought of trying to plan an attack just to give them something to do to get their excitement and drive to kill up again, but he didn't have any information to go off and couldn't risk another failure like the Battle of Hogwarts. He tried to explain this, but only ended up pressing Narcissa almost into tears when he shouted that the entire future of their battle plans rested for the moment on her ability to gain meaningful information.

And after he ended the meeting, all the Death Eaters but Travers, Yaxley and Rosmerta disapparated right away.

To further complicate matters, later that night in bed beside his wife, he fell asleep and dreamed for the first time since before Horcruxes.

He dreamt he was striding into a dark pub with a Hog's Head sort of feeling to it. It was located in a barn of some sort and bustling with a strange mix of characters talking animatedly over greasy flagons of beer and liquor. In a far corner, an older man with a steel grey beard and his hair in a ponytail was playing a guitar for tips.

But Voldemort had eyes only for the blonde woman sitting at the center of the bar, stirring her cocktail with a cherry stem.

"Fiona," he said as he pulled up the stool beside her and sat down.

"Voldemort. I was worried you wouldn't make it."

"But this is a dream. I'm not a fool."

"Maybe," she shrugged and went right back to stirring her drink. Voldemort waved down the toothless old bartender and ordered a smoky bourbon on the rocks. He'd had so many questions to ask Fiona, but now that she was here with him-even as a dream-he found he couldn't remember any of them. It wasn't exactly a pleasant feeling, he decided.

"Have you thought anymore about what I told you? That the threat might not be coming from the Muggle-Borns after all?"

Voldemort struggled to form an answer, but his thoughts were all soupy and hard to grab hold of. Fiona smirked like she knew exactly what she was doing and he envied anyone with power like that.

"No? Well, let me ask you this then. Did you hear about the witch burnings happening in the states? I would be surprised if you had. The media is doing anything they can to hush it all up. It's Salem all over again."

 _Witch Burnings_? Fiona sighed.

"Here, let me show you." Before he could work out what she meant, she projected something into his mind. For a few seconds, all he could see and smell was fire. It glowed blue first, then orange, red, white, black as the crackles and pops were drowned out by a woman's last, desperate scream.

Then, just as soon as it all began, Voldemort was back in the dive pub looking at Fiona in her tight black dress.

"I thought you wouldn't know," she said nonchalantly. " I mean, when has your Ministry reported on anything useful? Even still, I don't think it has happened in your country yet. But be warned-it's a REVOLUTION. The Muggles are rising up against us!" She slammed her hands down on the counter and Voldemort had to suppress a dry laugh. "They've been tracking the movement of our kind for centuries! And now...well these 'accidents' can't be purely coincidental."

He couldn't help it. He laughed at her, crasser and more bitterly than he'd laughed at anyone in a long time. Muggles rising up against and killing wizards and witches? She couldn't be serious.

"Well, you'll believe what you'll believe," she said, frowning slightly. "But mark my words, the proof is gathering and soon even you won't be able to deny it. In the meantime, I'd watch yourself...and your nasty little wife, if I were you."

"Why?"

"Isn't it obvious, darling? That girl's knocked up with your baby."

~ _I'll fix your feet til you can't walk_

 _I'll lock your jaw til you can't talk_

 _I'll close your eyes so you can't see_

 _This very hour, come and go with me_

 _I'm Death I come to take the soul_

 _Leave the body and leave it cold~_

 **A/N: What is going on with everyone?! Read on to find out. And maybe leave me a review if you're feeling nice? I just signed up to do Camp NaNoWriMo, so hopefully having a daily word count deadline again like I did in November will encourage me to write more frequently.*crosses fingers***


	6. Chapter 6: Rat Poison

**Chapter 6: Rat Poison**

 _August 1998_

 _Slytherin Manor_

 _Master Bedroom_

 **(Bellatrix)**

It was better as soon as it began, or so she thought. One moment it was like everything was collapsing in around them, their life, their world...then seemingly as quickly as it began, Bellatrix woke up feeling like herself again. It was a day like any other, except that when she awoke, Voldemort wasn't there. Sunlight streamed in through the window in that just born kind of way like it was just after dawn, but Voldemort's side of the bed was meticulously made up and only single, folded sheet of parchment rested on the pillow there.

 _B,_

 _Had a sudden engagement with an old acquaintance in Albania. Didn't want to wake you. Keep well,_

 _V_

So short, so simple, some she knew would even say cold-but those were just the qualities of the note that filled Bellatrix with a rush of familiarity, like everything was alright again.

Before they were married, but after Bellatrix began staying at the Manor, he used to leave her notes like this one. He would leave for days, weeks, almost months at a time and she wouldn't hear from him, but would trust that he was alright, taking care of something important and would tell her all about it when he returned...just as he trusted that she would keep well enough on her own.

And then since the wedding...no...since the battle in May...he'd been all...up in her shit trying to take care of her, worrying all the time and not telling her what about...always around...maybe some witches considered this behavior normal, even expected, from their partners...but Bellatrix felt cramped and violated, much preferring the days when he didn't treat her so delicately.

Maybe she was reading too much into it...in act, she most certainly was. But in the present moment, she was looking at an entire day (or longer) to herself to do...what exactly? _Raise a little hell_ , she thought, a familiar amused glint returning to her eyes.

 _1410 Jackson Avenue_

 _New Orleans, LA_

 **(Voldemort)**

Voldemort didn't like being in a place so unfamiliar, so weakly armed, but that aside, he followed Fiona up a set of stone steps up to an expansive front porch wrapping around a 19th century American manor home about an hour or so by train from the swamp witch shack he'd visited on previous occasions.

Fiona hadn't offered much preface. _It's a school,_ she'd said _. A school for witches._ It was also Fiona's home, it seemed, and the headquarters of the anti witch-hunting movement. She pushed open a set of wide double doors and led Voldemort inside the mansion, where everything hit his eyesight at once, all the same brilliantine white-the walls, the floor, the chandeliers hanging from the white ceiling, the tall Roman columns, the fireplace, the backing of the high-backed chairs-all white.

"I brought you here..." Fiona paused and swept her arm across the parlour area before them in a gesture of dramatic grandeur. "...to discuss how we are going to proceed."

"You speak as if I've already made agreement to join you," said Voldemort, his patience thinning.

"Well pardon me, Lord Voldemort, but once you hear what I have to say, what I have to offer you, you'll wonder why I didn't come to you sooner...please, take a seat."

"As for the witch hunters, what I know is this. The Delphi Trust-sound familiar to you?" Fiona prompted. Voldemort shook his head. "No? Anyway, it was founded in the 19th century by the remaining descendents of a brotherhood dating back to Salem and before. They're Muggles who claim dedication to stamping out witchery on the North American continent, though they have conducted attacks overseas as well. The Delphi Trust is disguised as a financial institution," she explained. "It was founded by three brothers and we at this coven have been trying to track down its current members, but we're moving too slowly."

"What does any of this have to do with me?" said Voldemort impatiently.

"You don't understand. Attacks and disappearances are getting more frequent. Like I told you, a young witch was recently burned at the stake not too far from here for being seen using the power of resurgence on a baby bird. She was accused of necromancy and executed by her community without a trial, she-"

"Her first mistake was being seen," said Voldemort quietly. "Or maybe that was her second mistake. Her first mistake was trying to help an inferior creature, defying the natural order of things…"

"The natural order of things?!" hissed Fiona. She drew herself up higher on her sofa perch, looking positively imperious and cat-like. "Who was it trying to exterminate muggle-borns and part-bloods when _all_ of our magic, every single one of us, defies the natural order of things?! If there's one thing I can't stand it's a racist. Those of us with magical blood need to unite and protect each other because when we start to divide and turn against our own, that's when the Muggles and their Delphi Trusts can swallow us whole. _They_ are united under a common goal waiting to ruin those of us who aren't destroyed by our own kind first. You may not have raised a wand to Albus Dumbledore yourself, but you're the reason he's dead. Dumbledore, Scrimgeor, Alastor Moody...I understand wanting to secure your own power, but god damn it, we've got to save our necks first and what the hell does killing valuable allies accomplish?!" She flicked her wrist aggressively and a crystal goblet zoommed out of another room towards her outstretched hand, brimming with a green-tinted liquor. He could tell she was angry, but Voldemort thought she owed him an explanation or several.

"Why do you know so much about Dumbledore, my Death Eaters and myself?" He was simultaneously flattered and a little concerned, for flattery didn't seem Fiona's intention. Not this time, anyway.

"I've had my eye on you and your community a long time. We have reason to believe here that Delphi's movement is spreading or already has an established chapter in Europe flying below the radar of your Ministry through the use of an insider-one of us, betraying the rest of us to them." She took another sip from her drink without having ever offered Voldemort anything. Not that he would drink it if she did. He needed his wits about him-she knew too much. Apparently sensing his lack of argument for complacency, she went on.

"We need to cooperate. I'm trying to forge an alliance with the voodoo practitioners of New Orleans, meanwhile you need to find and eliminate the Delphi connection in your Ministry," said Fiona. She flicked her wrist again and a leather bound book sped towards her from its position on a high white shelf. She caught it in the hand not holding the drink and flipped it open, exposing a stack of newspaper clippings, photographs and handwritten notes stuck between the yellowed pages of a very old book.

"This is Harrison Renard, the CEO of Delphi Trust," she said, holding up a muggle photograph of a light-skinned, balding, middle-aged man in a suit.

"He's too high up to get to him right off. On top of that, he almost never goes out in public, preferring to stay in his cowardly shelter, the Delphi Trust building, which seems to be both unplottable and impossible to apparate in or out of, again contributing to my theory that a few of us have sold our souls to help them. What we can do is try to eliminate Renard's worker bees-quietly, and getting as much information out of them as we can before we get rid of them. As for you? If you're as in charge of things over there as you say you are, then you need to find your rat and terminate it."

Voldemort snatched the book out of her hands and began to skim through it-mostly glossy muggle photographs of rumored Delphi affiliates, some of them with notes scribbled in the corners like "Believed Responsible for Chattahoochee Forest Witch Burning" and over some of the pictures, a large red "x" accompanied by the word "eliminated." Then Voldemort's eyes landed on a picture that made his blood run colder than usual. A picture of a stone crest of sorts, bearing a triangle intersected by a circle and a straight line-the symbol of the deathly hallows.

"What is the meaning of this!" he demanded, but Fiona merely smirked at him and examined her shiny red fingernails like this was all a waste of time to her.

"Oh, that? That's the symbol of the Delphi Trust. Probably been in use since its founding." The symbol of the Deathly Hallows was the same as the symbol for an ancient witch hunting organization (if Fiona was to be believed)? What did it all mean? Was it merely a coincidence, or something more? And how old was she that she knew their history as if she'd lived it, yet looked no older than Bellatrix and had a face as smooth as glass? He had little time to dwell on this, as Fiona quickly snatched the book out of his hands and slammed it shut. He longed to pull out his wand and use the cruciatus curse on her for treating him like this-like an ignorant child in need of proper education, but he knew that he was no longer magically strong enough to do so and it was destroying him inside. How long could his rage boil inside of him before he turned to some sort of brash muggle violence they'd both regret? Fiona seemed to sense his unease because she relaxed her posture somewhat and shrank back into the white sofa cushions.

"You need to stop pussying around and take charge of this-or our kind will lose all the freedom we've come to know. Take responsibility for the influence you now hold. You wanted Scrimgeor's job and Dumbledore's position and now you have it-use it. Save your own ass before you ask anyone else to kiss it."

 _The Silver Eye Tavern_

 _Knockturn Alley, London_

 **(Bellatrix)**

"I wouldn't have called you here if I didn't feel the circumstances were...bordering on dire."

"Dire?"

"As in I'm in dire need of an escape from the day-to-day insufferable boredom of being married." Bellatrix laughed, but Narcissa looked scandalized.

"Insufferable? You don't mean that." Narcissa sat next to Bellatrix at the bar, her light eyes wide as silver sickles.

"Alright, well maybe most new brides aren't stuck shoved up at home pretending to be dead. Maybe that's just me," said Bellatrix bitterly.

"The Dark Lord is only trying to protect you, Bella."

She scoffed and ordered two firewhiskies from the one-eyed bartender. Together, scattered several knuts on the counter as tip and took the drinks to a rickety table furthest to the back of the bar. Bellatrix thought coming here, to the furthest corner of Knockturn Alley, would safeguard her best against prying eyes. Or she just didn't care. But Narcissa had other ideas.

"I still say you should have taken Polyjuice Potion, what if someone recognizes you?"

"What's life without a little risk?" Bellatrix said, echoing a Black family sentiment. "Besides, it's better than staying at home getting dry rot."

"What's wrong with staying home? I've been doing it for years," said Narcissa, who had very little color in her face (not that she ever had much to begin with). Her long blond hair was pulled back in a tight, thin ponytail adorned with a silver ornamental butterfly. She looked stressed and drawn, with bags under her eyes and visible signs of aging Bellatrix hadn't noticed before.

"Maybe that works for you Cissy, but it's not for me….I need excitement, a fight every once in a while even if it's just knocking a few death eater's heads together for being stupid."

"Always so gracefully fearless, Bella." Narcissa offered her a thin-lipped smile, but it disappeared as quickly as it came.

"Honestly what I wouldn't give for someone to knock me around right now so I can prove I'm still an extraordinarily powerful witch, even if the Dark Lord wants to lock me away like I can't take care of myself," said Bellatrix, half-kidding and half-serious.

"Bella, you can't!" whispered Narcissa urgently. "You'll give yourself away and then where will we be? The Light thinking you're dead is about the only ace we've got to play right now!"

"Fine!" hissed Bellatrix. She took a long, slow sip from her drink and smiled mischievously. "Then we'll do something else fun like when we used to sneak away from mother as girls. What'll it be? Shopping? Trying on absurdly expensive lingerie? Flirting mindlessly with everyone?"

"Bella, you can't! Flirting mindlessly with everyone? How could you betray him like that? I thought you were with the one you've always loved." Narcissa looked close to tears. But why couldn't she understand?

"I am. I just need to stretch a bit, and besides, when has the Dark Lord ever cared who or what I do as long as I come back to him at the end of the night?"

"That was _before_. And you know it." Bellatrix bit her lip.

"Fine. Honestly, I should have hit up Rosmerta for a drink. At least she knows how to have fun," she snapped. Narcissa turned away and fiddled with something in her handbag, shielding the side of her face with her ponytail. Bellatrix knew she should be careful not to hurt her sister, especially with her condition being questionably delicate, however, Bellatrix had been in quite the funk lately herself and was grateful to be feeling more like herself than she had in a couple of months.

"Bella you can't have true love and total freedom, it just doesn't work that way," murmured Narcissa. She turned round to face Bellatrix again, her eyes hollow and empty.

"Well maybe it should." Silence. They finished their drinks and Narcissa gathered the empty glasses to take up to the bar for a refill. Bellatrix glanced around the dingy tavern. It was fairly dark and mostly empty save for a few women gathered in the opposite corner, concealing their faces with thick cloaks and whom she was very sure were hags.

"Well well, what do we have here?"

Bellatrix froze. A cool shiver ran down her spine. The voice behind her that had spoken was not Narcissa's.

"Bellatrix Lestrange...I knew all along you were alive...when we never found your body, I wasn't fooled for a minute. Turn round and face me why don't you?!"

"We've got to take her alive, Neville. McGonagall will want to use her as collateral." Bellatrix put one hand on the handle of her wand and twisted the side of her neck so she could see the young men behind her. One of them was unmistakeably the Longbottom boy-not really a boy anymore, but still the round-faced son of those Aurors she'd landed in St. Mungo's all those years ago. The second one to speak was tall, red-haired and likely a Weasley mad about what happened to his brother at the battle...like he didn't have others. And the third, a sandy-haired young man, youthful-looking in his face, stood quietly behind them with his wand pointed directly at Bellatrix's heart.

"What the hell is going on here?" Narcissa returned in a panic, slopping the two drinks down the front of herself as she rushed to stand beside Bellatrix, who remained seated and expressionless. They could them, couldn't they? Sure it was two against three but these boys were barely beyond Hogwarts age-wasn't this just what Bellatrix had been hoping for, deep down inside? A little fight, nothing dangerous, but a chance to prove herself nonetheless?

"And Narcissa Malfoy, too. Stil got her nose up like she's smelling something bad even though her entire family's disgraced," said the Weasley boy, scrunching up his face like he was the one smelling something bad. He too, drew his wand.

"Boys, I believe there's been a misunderstanding...whoever you think we are, I've never heard of them before...oh no, we're just out for a bit of shopping and if you don't mind, we're going to leave now, although I do help you find whoever you're looking for," said Narcissa in a surprisingly even albeit high-pitched tone.

"Bloody hell, who'dya take us for?" the third boy said menacingly with a touch of Irish-sounding brogue. Bellatrix couldn't resist laughing.

"Where's your Mummy? Does she know you're here threatening two respectable ladies of society?" She teased.

"Society?! I'll give you society-"

"SEAMUS! NO!"

"CONFRINGO!" Bellatrix and Narcissa jumped to opposite sides as the table they'd been sitting at was blown to pieces. The glasses of firewhisky in Narcissa's hands fell to the ground and shattered, staining the stone floor ominously in dark red as the one-eyed bartender ran over to them.

"What the eff is going on here? Outta my bar!"

"Shut up!" growled Bellatrix.

"Nonsense, they attacked us!"

"They're Death Eaters! Prisoners about to be taken into custody by order of-" but Neville was cut off by a jet of red light Bellatrix aimed at Seamus.

"GET OUT OF MY BAR, ALL OF YOU!"

"STUPEFY!"

The bartender fell backwards into a table while the hags in the corner watched the entire exchange with apparent interest.

Narcissa drew her wand now and pointed it at the three boys. Neville and Seamus shot a few well-aimed at hexes in Bellatrix's direction, but both narrowly missed her, sailing behind her ears instead and shattering a window in back of the bar. Bellatrix began dueling both boys at once while Narcissa took on the Weasley boy.

"EXPULSO!"

"IMPEDIMENTA!"

The table to the right of Bellatrix exploded, catching the side of her face with a jagged chunk of wood.

"CRUCIO!"

"EXPELLIARMUS!" Neville Longbottom made to disarm Bellatrix to deflect her cruciatus curse but she grabbed her wand as it made to leave her hand, deflecting the curse into Seamus instead, who collapsed to the floor, writhing.

"BOMBARDA!" shouted Neville at the ceiling above her, where the hanging candelobra swung back and forth with ferocity.

Bellatrix jumped aside when it fell, but everything around her seemed to go up in flames at once.

"AGUAMENTI!" one of the boys shouted, but Bellatrix had a better idea. One that would ensure no living member of the Order of the Phoenix had seen her alive.

" _Fiendfyre Maxima,"_ she whispered and as the flames grew in height and took on personalities of their own against the three boys-some as chimaera and others as snakes, eagles and wild boars, Bellatrix searched for her sister.

 **(Voldemort)**

"And now, now on to that wife of yours," Fiona said. She was on her second glass of absinthe now and Voldemort remained sober, observing her, learning her mannerisms, developing a way of charming her or at least lulling her into a false sense of security in the way only he was able to do. "You must have noticed the changes overtaking her," Fiona went on. The sun setting outside cast the all-white room a harsh shade of orange, with Fiona's blonde hair at the center of the inferno.

"You said she was with child."

"...and becoming more powerful by the day. As you grow weaker, she grows stronger. Curious, isn't it?" She prompted. Voldemort's mind traveled once more to that early morning in May. _Bellatix was dead, lying on the gold-backed chaise in Madam Rhiannon's main room. Rhiannon said Misty could save her, but Misty needed something of Voldemort's-his blood. Drained it from his body. Pumped it into Bellatrix. Brought her back with blood and swamp mud and incantations in languages he'd never heard before…_

"You mean...my power...I gave it all...to Bella?"

"...and by proxy, you spread it to this baby."

"If I had known...I never would have…" The reality he probably knew all along was sinking in.

"Saved her? You can't mean that. You know you don't mean that." How could it be? How could magic work like that?

"There must be a way to fix it." He'd conquered death, preserved himself without a body and returned to a body and, with access to Fiona's type of magic, brought Bellatrix back after she was hit by the killing curse. He was master of the Elder Wand...nothing could defeat him. Not even this.

"Perhaps. I'm sure with the proper research we could find a way, but for now just assure no harm comes to her-as I believe you already knew, her body is to be thought of as a protective casing over your magical power, your lifeblood and your heir-a vessel if you will. And right now that's the best place for it as long as we protect her."

"And if she becomes suspicious?"

"Lie. Lie with all you've got. I will do the rest. Do not tell her anything. In time she may become more aware of her power, but don't tell her. Do as I say and we shall both be rewarded in the end. Now, go get your girl-you'll find her stirring up trouble in a tavern called _The Silver Eye_ in a rather dodgy part of London. Then...exterminate your rats and wait for my next instruction."

 _~Bring on the wonder_

 _Bring on the song_

 _I pushed you down deep in my soul for too long_

 _Bring on the wonder_

 _We got it all wrong_

 _We pushed you down deep in our souls for too long~_


	7. Chapter 7: Lullabies

**Chapter 7: Lullabies**

 _August 1998_

 _Slytherin Manor_

 _Entrance Hall_

"You fail to understand the seriousness of what you have done...and yet you have nothing to say for yourself?"

Voldemort grabbed at a tuft of Bellatrix's hair and pulled, dragging her along the taupe-colored stone floor behind him.

"ANSWER ME WHEN I AM SPEAKING TO YOU!" He yanked on her hair again, but Bellatrix only emitted a quiet moan. He wanted to kick her, hurt her, punish her, but now he had the baby to think about. Her baby. _Their_ baby. His heir. But still, violence shuddered through him to his core. Even though deeper down, he knew (though he'd never admit it to her) that he was impressed. He'd never seen anyone have control over fiendfyre the way she did. The three light side blood traitors disapparated when he arrived, leaving only Bellatrix and Narcissa trapped in a bar that was rapidly burning to the ground...but the way she seemed to pull it all back into her wand, he'd never seen anything like it. Worse and more incredible still, he'd never _done_ anything like it.

"I'm waiting for you to hurt me," Bellatrix said, and he was brought back to the present moment by the dull look in her eyes.

"You still haven't told me why you think you should be hurt."

"You know why."

"I want to hear it from you," said Voldemort. She sighed.

"I disobeyed you. I left the Manor. I went out in the open, blew our secret, let the light side see me. I endangered Narcissa...endangered you…" _Even though I didn't need you to save me…._ he heard her think without attempting to control it.

"I'm not going to hurt you. At least, not physically. But as punishment for your insolence...do you recall when I took your memories?"

"Is that supposed to be a threat? Because I know you wouldn't do that to me again," she said and then clamped a hand over her mouth knowing she said something she shouldn't have. Something she never would have gotten away with had their situation not been so delicate. She looked up at him from her position lying on her back on the cold floor, her hair splayed out all around her like the snakes of Medusa.

"I need to think. Meet me in the Armory in three hours. There and then, I will decide what to do with you."

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 _?_

 _?_

 _?_

 _The first night Bellatrix and Voldemort had sex, the entire world might have been on fire and she wouldn't have noticed. It was everything Bellatrix had ever wanted, and she worried he never wanted, all in one. But her breath was hot shrouding her own face with how desperately horny she was. The room was red and the bed posts were red and the bed linens, all black, though covered in so many rose petals one couldn't tell. Two altars on either side of the bed dedicated to the dark king and queen, respectively. Red pillar candles shaped like sex organs. Rose incense. Cinnamon. Cloves. All those things that smelled wonderful to her-and then she was cuffed to the bed in chains not even magic could break because she didn't want to be able to pull herself away from him. He climbed onto the bed and she held her breath because otherwise she thought she would explode if he were not inside of her right away._

 _And then he was ripping off her clothes. Nothing was tender. But Bella thought she might orgasm the second he touched her. But he didn't touch her. He squeezed her until all the blood vessels in her thighs might have popped but still she was there, blinking hard and fast up at him. She reached to take off his clothes, but the chains pulled her back and so he swatted her away and took off his own clothes while she watched with as much lust and longing as had built up and ravaged her body since she was that teenager moaning in her sleep dreaming about him, learning to make herself feel happy and pleasured when no one else could. She needed to love herself so that one day, she could teach him how to love her…_

 _There was no foreplay. He shoved her against the mattress with the full force of the palms of his hands and when he entered her, she had to squeeze her eyes shut because she hadn't expected it to hurt like that. He pushed himself in deeper and the hurt went away as she let him have her. Joyfully, exuberantly, she gave herself to him._

 _All the while, she struggled against her old (though not altogether ill-founded) anxieties-he doesn't love you, he will never love you, you're just a servant. A servant and a whore. But that night, she was the happiest whore in the world._

Bellatrix woke up with a sudden start. Panting, she felt her whole body shudder as she orgasmed, fully-clothed, on a cold and uncomfortable surface. Were dreams about Voldemort always going to be like that? Voldemort...where was he? Straining a bit, Bellatrix pulled herself into a sitting position. She still had a tingling feeling below her waist, but what embarrassed her most about it was that she was very much alone in the middle of the Entrance Hall to the home she shared with her...her _husband._ Another shudder coursed through her, but this time it wasn't centered around her vagina...but a little higher...and vibrating. At once, the palm of her hand flew to her lower belly where she felt it...light at first, and then more persistent. Something inside of her was... _moving._

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 _August 1998_

 _Slytherin Manor_

 _The Armory_

"Bellatrix, I need you to drink this." It was dark in the Armory. The only lights Voldemort had lit were the torches on either side of his potion-making table. Even the glittering smoke pit at the center of the room was only emitting a few soft plumes. His eyes were so dark that there in the shadows, they looked like two empty sockets in the skull of a long-dead snake. She didn't dare admit that in that moment, coupled with the fact that she already knew she was in trouble with him, he was scaring her a little bit.

"My Lord...Voldemort...what is it?"

"Don't you trust me?" He hissed, holding out a steaming flask of a clear potion. Bellatrix swallowed hard.

"With my life."

"Then do as I say." She nodded and took the flask, bringing it to her lips. The potion was smoky and cold like dry ice, but had the consistency of gel sliding down her throat as she drank it down. Was he poisoning her? Of all the ways to kill her...or maybe it was some kind of elaborate, painful punishment, something to cause some humiliating change in her appearance? But nothing seemed to be happening. She downed the last few drops of the strange, tasteless, odorless potion and with some trepidation, set the empty flask down on the table. Voldemort tilted his head to one side and looked at her, then came around the table to stand next to her. She swallowed hard again. Was this it? Was this the moment? But he didn't touch her.

"Show me your arm," he commanded. Nodding quickly, Bellatrix rolled up her left sleeve to reveal her dark mark, but Voldemort frowned.

"No, your other arm." Now she was really confused. But she obeyed all the same and lifted her right sleeve. To her surprise, a single dark blue line was etched there on her wrist, like a hair tie she couldn't slide off.

"You know what this means?"

"No...I…. _No,_ " she said, as realization dawned on her. She _had_ seen a line like this before. On Narcissa's wrist. Eighteen years ago. "It can't be...I can't be…"she repeated, stumbling over her words. The getting sick. The strange moods. The...She clamped her palm over her lower abdomen again where again, she felt a shudder.

"Bella. My Bella...Inside you right now, you carry the heir to the darkness," said Voldemort...and then he did something that really surprised her, something she'd hardly ever seen him do before. Voldemort, the Dark Lord, _smiled._

Suddenly, Bellatrix had about a million questions burning holes into her being- _How? Why us? Why now? Is it really...could it really be? What next? What does it all mean? How did you know? What are we going to do?_ They couldn't keep it, could they? But all that seemed able to come out of her then, were tears.

Voldemort didn't know why Bellatrix was crying. After all, how many times had she expressed the wish that the two of them have children together? How often lately had they been wishing for a path out of the muddled war they were currently navigating? And what better path then to have a child with the power of the both of them all in one, a child to carry on everything if anything happened...an heir to the darkness, a shining light in its own right, there at just the proper moment to save them. But Bellatrix didn't seem to register any of this. Instead, she stood there in front of him, arms crossed defensively in front of her heart, letting her tears fall freely from her eyes and down her cheeks, where they dropped one by one into the deep furrow of her cleavage.

He couldn't tell her how he knew. He couldn't tell her about Fiona, even though it worried him that the swamp witch knew before either of them. Sighing, Voldemort wrapped one arm tightly around Bella's middle and apparated them both into the soothing cool of their bedroom.

Slowly, he undressed her, first slipping off her shoes and taking off her dress, then undoing her corset, unhooking her bra and slipping her out of her lingerie, all the while massaging different parts of her exposed skin with the pads of his fingertips. He wasn't thinking about it too much...just doing what he felt he needed to. But still, she said nothing. Just kept on crying.

"Beautiful, Bella. Beautiful, beautiful Bella," Voldemort whispered. "Sleep now, my dark queen, and dream."

 _~Rest, sweet nymphs, let golden sleep_

 _Charm your star-brighter eyes_

 _Thus, dear damsels, I do give_

 _Good night, and so am gone;_

 _With your hearts' desires long live,_

 _Still joy and never mourn._

 _Lullaby, lullaby~_


	8. Chapter 8: The Twa Corbies

**Chapter 8: Twa Corbies**

 **(Bellatrix)**

"We have a meeting tonight. You will be attending. But first we will be having a conversation," said Voldemort from across the breakfast table. Bellatrix kept on stirring brown sugar into her oatmeal without meeting his eyes. "Bella. Look at me," he said with a bit more force this time. She looked first at her right wrist, where that ominous blue line was starting to fade away, and then up at Voldemort.

"Finish your breakfast and then meet me in the statue garden," he said and then excused himself from the table without another word or even glance back in her direction...but Bellatrix didn't like the sound of his tone at all.

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 **(Voldemort)**

While Bella was stirring her hot cereal around, Voldemort was pacing his study. Bellatrix was having his-their-child. _Bellatrix_ was having his _child._ The more he said it over and over in his mind, the more unbelievable it sounded. But Bellatrix was also full of his magical power at the moment and he needed to find a way to get it back without killing her...at least not until the most powerful child to ever be conceived was safely out of her body.

No, until then, he needed to make sure she was comfortable.

-00000-00000-0000-0000-00-

 **(Bellatrix)**

The air was brisk around the grounds outside Slytherin Manor-autumn was definitely on the way-but for now the sun still shone brightly over everything, the roses were in full bloom around the statue garden and Salazar Slytherin's grave was coated so thickly in ivy that it looked like it had a sweater on.

"What happened last night?" asked Voldemort. He looked genuinely confused. Bellatrix swallowed nervously and took his hand in hers. He didn't pull away-this gave her courage.

"I...was worried."

"About?"

"I thought you would want me to get rid of the baby. I thought I wouldn't get a choice about it...and then I thought maybe I didn't want it after all…" Bellatrix looked down at the grass so she wouldn't have to look at Voldemort. It was still lush and green as she crushed it beneath the heels of her lace-up black boots. She felt Voldemort's hand twitch in her own, but he didn't seem angry.

"Go on."

"About?"

"There's more to this," he said in the same soft voice he used to taunt people before he killed them. Voldemort sat down on a the stone bench next to a statue of Merlin and a pillar with a large green crystal nestled on top of it. Bellatrix sat down on his other side, gathering the hems of her dress around her. She began watching the earthworm wriggling out of the earth in front of her, deciding whether or not she should stomp it flat.

"I just feel like if I was supposed to be a mother, it would have happened already," she began hesitantly, feeling Voldemort's eyes boring red and hot into the side of her face. "And besides, since it hasn't happened for me yet, I don't know that I want it to." Of course Bellatrix had thought of motherhood before-how could she not have, after both of her sisters went on to have children? She never knew Andromeda's daughter, and may have even been the one to kill her at the battle of Hogwarts, but for all she heard, Andromeda loved being a mother-and had even taken in her orphaned grandson to raise as her own. As for Narcissa, well she'd been so excited about Draco...even now, 18 years later, her son was still her whole world. But in that regard, Bellatrix had never felt like she was missing out on anything. Others did, of course, but with the first wizarding war starting up right around the time she was graduating from school and then being in azkaban for fourteen years, well there'd always been too many other things on her mind. And Voldemort...she loved him with an intensity that even she didn't understand, but the idea of _Voldemort_ as a father was laughable...though she had to phrase that bit carefully. He didn't do well with hearing he might not be good at something.

"...and you, with the way that you...because you were...you didn't have...well, maybe you weren't supposed to be a parent, either…"

"Because I was raised in an orphanage? Because I didn't have parents? Is that what you truly think, Bellatrix?" She could feel ice radiating off of him as he stiffened beside her. The earthworm wriggled closer to the pointed toe of Bellatrix's left boot, closer to it's death.

"I don't know what I think."

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 **(Voldemort)**

Voldemort sighed. Bellatrix stiffened like she was afraid he was going to punish her, and for a brief moment, he wanted to, but then something inside him changed. He lifted his left arm a little stiff and awkwardly and put it around Bella's shoulders. She shivered as if a small course of lightning had suddenly passed through her. What did it feel like to be her, he always wondered-to feel everything with such desperate intensity.

"My Lord-I'm sorry, I overstepped, I...please don't be angry with me," she whispered and he saw her eyes, so full of fire and earth and memories every time she looked at him.

"I'm not," said Voldemort and just as suddenly as if a veil were lifted, he felt Bellatrix lift the shroud around her mind and let her thoughts tumble into his own: _I love you. I've always loved you. Even if that doesn't mean the same thing to you as it does to me...it doesn't have to. Sometimes I think about you growing up feeling so unwanted and it makes me overwhelmingly sad...but you are a great wizard. And I am a great witch. We can do anything together, I know we can, but what if we are, neither of us, equipped for this particular thing?_ Memories of a young Bellatrix tossing away the baby dolls her sisters played with in favor of wands and swords and broomsticks, mingling with his own-of a young Voldemort who still shared the name of a weak nothing of a father who wanted nothing to do with him, isolated from other children his own age, reading all he can by the light of a moon who has become his greatest, truest friend.

"Do you want to keep the baby, Bella?" he asked. He felt her stiffen in surprise again.

"Is this a trick question?"

"Of course not. It's your body. It's your choice. But I would like to hear your thoughts...verbally. Not just in your mind." She was silent for a long while before she drew a slow breath and spoke.

"I think...I think that we are going to do _so much good_ by this child, my Lord. I know we will...say what you will about love and about me, but I know you already care for this one and that is everything to me...And maybe I don't have to see a traditional mother to be an acceptable one...after all, this isn't just any traditional child. It's ours. _Ours,_ " she repeated, letting her lips linger over the word a little longer than she needed to.

"The heir to the darkness," said Voldemort. And then, without warning, Bellatrix grabbed his hand and clasped it over her lower abdomen, where, there was no mistaking it, Voldemort felt a movement like a spider over cold flesh.

"Is it supposed to do that?" he asked.

"Hell if I know. It can't be more than a couple of months old, but it's already so strong…"she trailed off.

His eyes followed hers to the ground, where an earthworm passed over her own foot and slithered back into the dirt.

"Not his time," she whispered and for the first time that day, she caught his eye and smiled.

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 **(Bellatrix)**

"You're early, darling. Is everything alright?" Narcissa held open the front door to Malfoy Manor to allow Voldemort and Bellatrix passage inside.

"Yes, don't worry, the Dark Lord had a few things to put into place before the meeting and as for me, I wanted to talk to you…" Narcissa nodded, but still looked concerned as she took Bella by the arm and led her into her lavender sitting room.

"The Death Eaters have already taken up their drinking places in the main part of the house and I didn't want us to be overheard," she said.

"You're looking better," said Bellatrix as she hastened a glance over her little sister's appearance. Narcissa's long blonde hair was styled into a fancy updo and the pastel green dress she was wearing was a lot less modest than the style she normally went for. Her cheeks were tinged with healthy pink and her eyes sparkled like frosty blue stars such that she looked about ten years younger than she had when they'd last seen each other.

"I have been feeling a lot more like myself lately, funny you should ask...but this is about you. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"I...I wanted to say that...oh for merlin's sake I've got to just be out with it-Cissy, the Dark Lord and I are..expecting…" said Bellatrix, stammering to get the thought out.

"Expecting...expecting a child?!"

"No, we're expecting an unseasonably warm winter and-oh of course a child, I took the test and had the blue line and everything just like you did with Draco."

For a few minutes, neither sister spoke. Bellatrix knew Narcissa was inspecting her for signs of negative emotion. _Fuck that_ , she thought.

"This is a good thing, you know," she said, only a little scathingly. Narcissa wrapped her fingers around a stray piece of hair and played nervously with it.

"Oh! Well of course, it's wonderful, it's just that-"

"You thought I wouldn't be pleased because I'm, well, me, is that it?"

"No, more so because Voldemort is Voldemort ."

On another day, Bellatrix might have confessed to her little sister her fears about everything. How she was worried she and Voldemort couldn't do this, or worse, that it would ruin them to do it. How she was terrified of losing herself to pregnancy and diapers and bedtime stories and toy wands, as her own identity slowly dissolved to be second entirely to that of her child. She was Bellatrix Black, the female warrior, queen of the Death Eaters, sexy and wild and free...and she hoped with ferocity that any innate mothering instinct she possessed would never be strong enough to override any of those qualities she valued in herself.

Then it occurred to her that never before had she heard Narcissa use the Dark Lord's name out loud and Bellatrix had the most distinct feeling that she was not alone in concealing things at the moment.

"Come on, dearest. It's time for the Death Eater meeting."

 _~As I was walking all alone,_

 _I heard two ravens cry and moan;_

 _One said to the other did say,_

 _"Where shall we go and dine today?"_

 _"Up behind that old high dyke,_

 _I know there lies a murdered knight..._

 _...You will sit on his white thigh,_

 _And I'll peck out his bonny blue eye;_

 _And with a lock of his golden hair_

 _We'll fix our nest when it grows bare~_


End file.
